|
|
Technical Documentation
Toshiba are very secrative about the technical documentation for their laptops. To help the wider Open Source movement it is my intention as I get time to document what I have worked out about how to control the Toshiba specific features of their laptops.
The way the features of the laptop are controlled is through two interfaces, known as the System Configuration Interface and the Hardware Configuration Interface. These two interfaces are implemented by using the System Management Mode of the processor. This is present on all Intel Pentium and later processors and all the SL seriers processors designed for laptops such as the 386SL.
My current documentation on the System Configuration Interface and the Hardware Configuration Interface can be downloaded from here as Adobe Acrobat files. Further information can be gathered by studying the source code for the Toshiba Linux Utilites
All Toshiba laptops have a unique identification number. Documentation on how to read this number along with information on turning the fan on/off on older models and detecting when the Fn key is pressed can be viewed here.